The basis on which
Modern Architecture was derived was the need for a new style that could be
contributed to history and would push towards the future rather than looking
into the past. Some of the greatest inventions come for the early 20th
century as well as some of the principles on which architecture is reliant on
today. Many people can be chosen as a viable source of modern architecture, but
there are three in particular that stand out and truly gave the world of
architecture something that will never be forgotten. Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto,
and Mies van der Rohe were the leading men of their field during their time and
their ideas are still incorporating in the design process today. In the
remainder of this text, the approaches that each architect took in the process
of design as well as the key ideas that each of them developed in order to be
so prominent in the world of architecture will be discussed.
Le Corbusier is
one of the most influential architects of modern architecture which is somewhat
ironic because of his love of the classicism, especially the “‘masculine’
classicism of ancient Greece” (Colquhoun, 138). An easy point in which one can
clearly see a change in Le Corbusier’s thinking was in the publication, L’Esprit Nouveau, in which the Le
Corbusier introduced his theory of the object-type. In his writing, Le
Corbusier praised Cubism for its simplification of forms. Reading this and
looking at many of his life works, one can clearly see the connection.
Although, he continue to design interiors in the neoclassical style for many
years which he learned from his teacher Perret, all of that was about to change.
It is strange how people who start using a similar tool, end up using it in a
very different way. The previous sentence is in reference to reinforced
concrete. Although Corbusier was taught a particular way to use the material,
he took the idea to another level.
The use of
reinforced concrete in the building process for Le Corbusier was a way to industrialize
the building process. This ideology leads Le Corbusier to the idea of the
Dom-ino frame which is illustrated in the figure below. This system is simply
composed of structural columns and concrete floor plates. This system of
building allowed for the interior was as well as the exterior walls to be
positioned with freedom. This simple concept could very well be the birth of
the open floor plan concept that was strongly utilized by many architects
including Mies van der Rohe. One of the first projects to use this system and
to be designed for the purpose of industurializion (in response to the mass
production and industrialization of the automobile) is the Citrohan House built
in 1925. Not only does this house display the widely space structure columns
near the base on which the mass is settled, it also introduces something new
made possible by the Dom-ino system. This idea, similar to the idea of the free
floor plan, is the free façade which allows for the placement and the size of
window openings to be at the architects discretion. The absolute freedom is
clearly seen in the size of the windows as well as the openings near the top
for the terrace.
The design of
this house along with many other works and influences lead Le Corbusier to an
ideology about architecture which he believe should be the fundamental starting
point for any design. These ideas are presented as Corbusier’s Five Points of
New Architecture which are pilotis, the roof garden, the free plan, the
horizontal window, and the free façade. A work of architecture that represents
all of these ideas to exactly as Le Corbusier had intended is the Villa Savoye.
The exterior displays the pilotis, the horizontal window and the free façade.
The floor plan below shows just how flexible and interior could be using this system
and the adjacent image is that of the roof top garden.
Alvar Aalto’s
real contribution to modern architecture may not have happened if it wasn’t for
his departure from Neoclassicism and Rationalism, from which Le Corbusier began
as well, to the logic of the New Objectivity. This style is represented in his
design for the Turku Fair competition of 1929 which is credited with introducing
the new style known as New Objectivity to the Finnish public. This depart is
seen clearly in his design for the Villa Mairea. This residence with its use of
space as combined living zones, wall-to-wall plate-glass windows is comparable
to the style of Mies van der Rohe in his Tugendhat House. This marks a slight
transitioning form the New Objectivity style into what people now know was
modern architecture. It has been said that through designing the Villa Mairea,
Aalto “sloughed off the last inherited skin, and revealed his true nature” (Curtis,
349). Also, the use of natural materials, such as
wood, in contemporary ways, as if they were new technology, is a notable change
in modern architecture and Avlar’s style. The usage of materials in new ways
gave rise to his designing of furniture as well.
An example of the way that
Aalto experimented with materials and tried to find a way to use them to
accomplish different effects in a design is clearly evident in his design of
the Experimental House. The layout is also example of how Alvar tried to
incorporate nature into the design in the way he use the courtyard as a way to
frame a piece of nature for the residents. These changes were only the start of the
development of Aalto’s style which went through more changes especially after
World War II. More specifically, the replacement of rustic brickwork with white
plaster and marble facings along with the increase of complexity in the designs
may have been his most important step throughout his career. This few, but
prominent changes, may have been reasons Aalto’s building programs changed to
buildings that are more symbolic such as concert halls and buildings like the
Vuoksenniska Church. Even though all of these changes occurred, “what remains constant
in Aalto’s work is its drawing on the forms of the natural world to express
growth and movement as a metaphor of human life” (Colquhoun, 204).
Last on the list is a man who took the idea of the free floor
plan and the idea of incorporating nature in architecture out outside of the “box”.
Much like the architects previously discussed, Mies started with a
reliance on historical ideas and developed throughout his career. In his early
work such as the Riehl House in Berlin, Mies van der Rohe was still using and
eclectic style and much like the rest of his neoclassical houses, it was “symmetrical,
a two-story prism, with minor appendages” (Colquhoun, 172). It was soon after this that his style began to
change and develop into something that is more recognizable as a work by Mies.
The Wolf house is the start of Mies’s transition in style and where he
started to define many principles that will be trademarked later as Miesian.
Having an artistic educational background, Mies started to show Constructivism
and hints of De Stijl in his designs. This is evident in the Wolf house which
is a series of interlocking cubes. One
might infer that Mies’s ideas about architecture and his style of design
changed with the commission of one single building as well as “summing up his
discoveries to date”, the Barcelona Pavilion. Apart from the Tugendhats
residence, the Barcelona Pavilion was Mies’s first steps an open floor plan and
the use a spaces for more than one function. This style of design began with
simple abstractions of what a wall and a window traditionally were considered
to be. This is clear in the design of the pavilion with its free standing and
intersecting planes which seemed to have transformed from an abstract painting
to a physical division and definition of space.
It was not long after that each of his underlying principles became
entirely clear in the Farnsworth House. The Farnsworth house was to be a
redefinition of the home and how it is perceived by others. The house, along
with the ideas of the open floor plan, looked to display the confines in which
a person lives in its simplest form. With a complete simplification of
structure, which can be compared to Le Corbusier’s pilotis, the house is basically
two identical planes separate by eight steel columns and glass walls. The walls
are what gave the Farnsworth house the connection to nature.
All of these architects are significant in history for redefining the
way a house is built, lived in, and how it connects to its surroundings.
Although each of them started with similar ideals about architecture, over time
each learned to develop their own thinking about the way architecture is perceived
by others. It is to them that many
architects look to for answers to toady and because of them many architects try
to develop new, individual ways to solve a common problem such as the house.
